Saturday, March 14, 2009

Tortuguero from the air

These two photos show Tortuguero from the air. I thought they would give a good orientation to the area. Tortuguero is in the northeastern part of the country, on the Caribbean coast, near the Nicaraguan border. You can see the Caribbean Sea in both of these photos.

Tortuguero National Park and the adjacent Barra del Coronado National Wildlife Refuge preserve the coastal low land jungle and provides a habitat for many animals, especially birds. The area is dominated by rivers and canals that separate the low land jungle areas. There are so many rivers and canals that the only way to reach Tortuguero is by small plane or by boat. There are no roads into Tortuguero.

The top photo shows the narrow strip of land where the town of Tortuguero is located. Across the river is part of the national park. From the town of Tortuguero or from some of the lodges, visitors can take boat excursions into the jungle.

In upcoming posts during the coming week, I will show you some of the animals, the lodge, and the Caribbean beach, which is an important nesting site for sea turtles. The animals I will show include one of the deadliest snakes in the jungle.

10 comments:

glenda said...

Tortuguero is pretty isolated then in some ways. But maybe not looking at all the possible water accesses.

Dave-CostaRicaDailyPhoto.com said...

Glenda,
Yes, Tortuguero is not the easiest place to reach because you have to go by boat, or a small plane. But, that isolation helps protect the wildlife. Tortuguero has stable populations of several threatened species. We need some areas that are isolated and hard to get to, otherwise they might be overrun with people and the wildlife would lose their vital habitat.

Julie ScottsdaleDailyPhoto.com said...

Tortuguero is full of wildlife and is a great eco-tourism place to visit.

Lilli & Nevada said...

What a lovely place

Sharon said...

This area looks a lot more tropical than the side you live on. A lot more jungle.

Dave-CostaRicaDailyPhoto.com said...

Sharon,
You are right. The Caribbean side is a lowland tropical jungle. The northwest Pacific Coast, called Guanacaste, is dryer and has mountains and valleys.

Tash said...

this is so amazingly beautiful
I love the name too - Tortuguero

crocrodyl said...

Beautiful! Great photos!

kuanyin333 said...

I'll be interested in following you into this beautiful wildlife sanctuary.

Kate said...

The curve of the river in the lower photo is delightfully serpentine. I adore the top photo because the river, the terrain and the sky make an interesting ribbon-pattern of horizontal lines.

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